America’s New Path Leads Directly To Mordor

Those of us who worry about upcoming events more than we should know intellectually that our overwrought reactions to stressful situations are unnecessary, and that ninety-nine percent of the time everything works out just fine. But there is that nagging one percent…and Donald Trump.

Trump is the rare case of an experience that turns out to be worse than you could ever imagine. A nightmare come true. Every morning brings headlines of new  horrors from opening up national parks to oil drilling to “alternative facts” to a president more concerned about crowd sizes at his inauguration than governing the country. Americans are living in a worse case scenario, a dystopian reality that was once the stuff of Tom Clancy novels and George Orwell’s imagination.

We were warned many times in the past. Sinclair Lewis, Aldus Huxley, Orwell, Gore Vidal, Margaret Atwood and many others raised flags throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first century about the real possibility of a totalitarian take over in America. You won’t find it mentioned in many American history books, but this country narrowly escaped a fascist coup in the 1930s when a cabal of elites (including George Bush’s grandfather) hatched a plan to use the military to overthrow FDR and establish a government modeled on Nazi Germany.

It can happen here and now it has. Today we live in an oligarchy that could slip at any moment into a totalitarian regime. Our status as a democracy is in question around the world, and foreign leaders are clearly alarmed and anxious as they monitor the actions of an American president unhinged from reality. Everything that makes us a supposedly democratic society is under threat, from a free press to freedom of assembly to the ability to hold elected officials accountable, and is being eroded by an insecure, mentally unstable president and his enabling administration.

Donald Trump is as bad as it can get. He represents everything that is antithetical to what was once the world’s most admired democracy. If he is allowed to remain in office for the next four years, our country will end up having far more in common with Mordor than Oz.

Destroying Democracy From The Inside Out

We do live in historically relevant times. You and I are unfortunate enough to have front row seats to the dismantling of the American experiment from the inside out. Angry, brainwashed, short-sighted white American voters managed to do what no military power could accomplish, and write the last chapter to the story of a country founded on democratic ideals that were eventually subverted by greed, racism and hubris. Everything the founding fathers had hoped for, everything countless Americans died for during the Civil War, everything civil rights protestors marched for, every great social advancement Americans ever struggled for, will be under attack over the next four years by Donald Trump. And with a Republican Congress, there is little hope of stemming the fascist onslaught.

Every new day brings the announcement of another unholy appointment by Trump. His administration will be a who’s who of democracy’s enemies, a cadre of conservative ideologues who live in a reality of their own making ripe with Aryan fantasies, internment camps and public executions. Trump and his cohorts are convinced they can do the impossible and turn back the clock of human progress to an imagined pre-Civil War era of bucolic mansions and happy slaves.

Trump is the great white hope. His life of privilege and excess mean nothing to his followers because it’s his mission that counts, making America white again. In the process that is now underway, we clearly see his list of priorities for America: Destroy public education, eliminate environmental protections, give Wall Street the keys to the White House, revive the drug war, stack the Supreme Court with conservatives, crush dissent, undo the welfare safety net, privatize Social Security and Medicare, substitute news with propaganda and, perhaps of utmost importance, fill his personal coffers to overflowing.

There were a few people who saw this coming, but their message reached a small minority of citizens who bother to look beyond the corporate media for information. The prophets were never taken seriously and had now power. No one in Trump’s America wants to hear from any smarty pants know-it-all.

We are stepping into a new world thanks to our president-elect, where the messiness of democracy will simply be dismissed in favor of one man’s blind faith in his own decision-making capabilities. Who needs a constitution when you have Donald Trump?

Forget Alt-Right, it’s Alt-Reality We Need To Worry About

There’s a lot of discussion on various political sites about the term “alt-right.” Many see it as a clever euphemism for “white nationalists,” and as an attempt to obscure the odious nature of those who claim the title. I would agree with that on the surface, but the fact is there is a much larger “alt” universe at work within the conservative world movement, and is it has been there since the very beginning. I call it “alt-reality.”

At its very core, conservatism (nationalism, fascism) is built on alt-reality, a myth, or many myths, that run counter to the historical, scientific and moral progress most of us understand to be true. The alt-reality of fascism is the myth of Aryan superiority among races, that the white race is God’s chosen people and all others must kneel in obedience and servitude. The white nationalists who now populate the Trump administration hold very similar views, but do a better job of hiding their true beliefs behind euphemisms, code words and the complacent media.

The alt-reality of today’s far-right conservatives is an ideological construct, an imagined world that never actually existed in the past and has crashed and burned in failure during every historical incarnation. Trump’s campaign slogan, “Make America Great Again,” is a perfect example of using an Orwellian phrase to construct a history that never existed. What is the definition of “great?” Was it the 1950s when the tax rate on America’s wealthiest individuals was near 90 percent, and millions of African Americans lived under Jim Crow laws completely at odds with the American Constitution? Was it the 1940s when, at the same time the U.S. military was fighting the Nazi war machine, American industrialists were doing business with Hitler? Or the 1930s when a cabal of multi-millionaires (including George W. Bush’s grandfather) was plotting the overthrow of the American government to install a fascist regime?

“Make America Great Again” is nothing more than a product slogan designed to inspire blind nationalism and knee-jerk hostility toward all of the imaginary enemies who have conspired to bring this country down. Trump is the product that has been sold to white Americans who have been convinced they are victims of immigrants, African Americans, liberals and the elites who look down on them. The fact that Trump is a card-carrying member of this list doesn’t seem to register. Alt-reality lives outside the boundaries of what the rest of us consider known facts and rational thought and because of this, there can be no constructive debate, let alone agreement, on the issues.

Hitler, Mussolini, Franco and many others were, like Trump, initially successful in selling the nationalist fairy tale to a desperate, vulnerable populace who were more than receptive to the idea that they were the master race destined to regain their lost power and prestige. The problem is like every fairy tale, there has to be an ending, Alt-reality cannot sustain itself indefinitely against real human progress. At every point in history, our forward momentum has been attacked, challenged and ridiculed, and every time it ultimately triumphs, although the price paid is often high.

History assures us that the reality of human progress will ultimately prevail over Trump and his minions, but we will have to endure some very difficult times ahead thanks to those who succumbed to the allure of a distorted, perverted fairy tale. There will be a price to pay, and unfortunately, all of us, regardless of what you believe, will end up paying it.

The Rise of Fascism American Style

Love him or hate him (and I don’t think there is any in between), Donald Trump has stirred up the normally stagnant political waters like no one in my lifetime. For those of us appalled by the idea of an unhinged, racist real estate mogul sitting in the Oval Office, it feels like we’re watching an out of control train careening down a mountainside to its inevitable explosive demise. Even Republicans like Mitt Romney are starting to panic, although, as others have pointed out, Trump is the monster the Republican Party built and there’s no way they’re going to get him back in the lab to take him apart.

The most frightening aspect of the Donald’s run is how his message of hate, exclusion, racism and violence resonates with so many Republicans. I’m sure intellectuals and leftists in Germany during the thirties were thinking the same thing. “How can so many German’s find Hitler and his policies appealing?”

Although the lion’s share of blame for Trump rests with the Republican Party, Democrats have to shoulder some responsibility as well. Over the past thirty years, Democrats have failed to offer a clear alternative vision to an American public growing  more and more disillusioned with politics and politicians. The problem exists on both the left and right, and it is manifesting itself in support for the non-establishment politicians, Trump and Sanders. Our government is dysfunctional, and Americans are slowly realizing that they can’t count on the government to heal itself, and are opting for true outsiders. The problem is, it’s left the door open for a guy like Trump with his fascist tendencies and racist appeal, a charismatic strong man promising to fix things in Washington and make America great again.

What Democrats know and now some Republicans are starting to realize is that the ego-driven Trump is playing a very dangerous game, and playing the conservative base for suckers. The only one who wants to see Donald Trump become President is Donald Trump’s ego.

Is America Becoming a Fascist Society?

I took this from a letter over on Common Dreams. I've seen it before, but I think it's a very relevant mirror for us to hold up and look at ourselves. Too many of the 14 characteristics are uncomfortably familiar. The point made by many others, but that bears repeating, is that fascism does not descend on a country or a people from on high with claps of thunder and jack-booted armies goose stepping through the streets. It infests the body politic slowly, quietly, until you wake up one morning and the disease has spread too far and the prognosis is a prolonged, painful death. Is it too late for us?


Fourteen Defining
Characteristics Of Fascism
By Dr. Lawrence Britt
Source Free Inquiry.co
5-28-3

Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:

1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottoes, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.

2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.

3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.

4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.

5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.

6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.

7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.

8. Religion and Government are Intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions.

9. Corporate Power is Protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.

10. Labor Power is Suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.

11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.

12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.

13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.

14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.